


i want to love her (from the inside)

by Toucanna



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heavy Angst, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03 Speculation, The end is positive I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:16:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toucanna/pseuds/Toucanna
Summary: She has only said I love you to three people in her life. The first is her father. Then, Anna. And the third, of course, is Eve.





	i want to love her (from the inside)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "Something About This Girl' by Tasha. So, I wrote this fic as sort of a Frankenstein-ing of another one I had in the works about Villanelle's childhood and past traumas. Also, if Suzanne Heathcoate doesn't start season 3 thirty seconds after the shooting and have Villanelle turn her ass around and book it, I will personally throw bricks at her house.

Villanelle has been a tourist before.

Her interest in learning is mutually exclusive from her profession. Whenever she goes to a new place, she always makes sure to hit at least one museum. In Paris, she’d wander the streets for hours, fascinated with the European architecture.

Russia is ugly and gray. Gothic. Weighed down from years of injustices. Also, she just hates it. She hates the way she wakes up in a cold sweat every night she’s there. She hates the way how she can still feel Anna’s eyes on her. She hates the way her blood splattered onto the floor, her beautiful face destroyed by a single gunshot.

On the other hand, Western Europe is all light and cobblestone. Its citizens are happier too. Villanelle likes to take it in sometimes, forget who she is. She joins their crowds with her camera and Birkenstocks just to absorb a little bit of their joy being in a new place.

She’s been a tourist before so she tries to admire the dilapidated brick arches of the Roman ruin she treks through. There’s an annoying ringing in her ears. It’s why she hates shooting guns. She prefers knives and hands. Up close. Everything else is too loud.

It’s always too loud.

Anna didn’t scream when she died. She fell. A cleanup crew scraped her brains off the wall the next day.

_I love you._

Villanelle has said those words to three people. Once, to her father. His disgusting alcoholic spit spraying in her face as she struggled against the fist clasped around her neck. He holds her down onto the bed.

_You’re my daughter. Say it._

He punches her. She already knows the bruise will bloom purple and yellow and green, like the daisies she sometimes picks on the route to school. Her mind goes blank, and she feels the words slip between her lips while she passes out. She wakes up later, and he’s gone. Her feet fall from under her as she stumbles to the kitchen for a bag of frozen peas. She stares at herself in the mirror, icing her bruise, and vows never to utter those words again unless she means it. Never.

The second person is Anna.

She is in foster care. _Violent behavior,_ they would say. _Textbook_ _Anti-social Personality Disorder._ One of the families had a dog. It was a pathetic little thing, yapping all day long. The mother returned from the grocery store to find it hanging from the rafters. It had taken Villanelle awhile to get up there. She was pretty proud of herself. The look of horror that spread across the woman’s face made it worth it.

She moves through several homes prior to meeting her. The powers that be figure if foster parents cannot control her, an education might. Little do they know, she is handling that herself. She reads every book available. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kafka. Knowledge is power, right? She’s never had power before.

They buy her a uniform and new books then send her on her way. The school is dusty yet sterile. The fluorescent lights hurt her eyes, and she keeps trying to blink so they adjust, but it doesn’t work. _French_ , it says on her schedule. French is first.

She sits in the back of the room, observing the chaos of her fellow students with quiet intensity. They’re childish, immature. She knows better.

The teacher walks in holding a mess of papers and binders, a shopping bag draped over her shoulder. Her unruly dark hair in disarray, repeating apologies in French for being late, sun dress that fits her curves perfectly.

She’s stunning, and she finds herself captivated. _Mrs. Aanmokoba._

The class is forced to introduce themselves.

 _Je m’appelle Oksana,_  she states confidently.

Mrs. Aanmokoba smiles, and she thinks it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. _Good pronunciation, Oksana._ She likes it when she says her name.

When the bell rings and her fellow students rush out to their next class, she hangs back. _J’aime… votre classe,_ _Madame Aanmokoba_ , she says slowly. The teacher smiles again, and she feels herself smile back.

 _Merci, Oksana._ She switches to Russian. _Please, call me Anna. I hate how formal all of this is._

 _Anna_ , Villanelle repeats, moving the word around her mouth.

 _You better get to your next class. I don’t want you to be late._ Anna points at the clock. _Au revoir, Oksana._

_Au revoir, Anna._

She gets sent to the dean’s office for biting a boy in math class.

 _This has been a series of problematic behavior,_ snarls the dean. She can hear his sneer through the door. She sits, legs-crossed, in an uncomfortable wooden chair that faces toward the hallway. She watches students pass. Some peek in, and she glares at them, their gazes immediately turning away. Good.

In her defense, the action is not premeditated. He hisses comments at her from his desk. _Psycho. Hey, psycho._ He throws a piece of paper at her, and she doesn’t move a muscle, training her eyes straight ahead on the blackboard. This lack of acknowledgement angers him. He leans over, and she feels his disgusting breath on her ear. It stinks of kholodet. Meat jelly. His lunch. She wants to skin him alive.

 _Do you like it when I do this, you crazy bitch?_ He reaches for her top. Mistake. She lunges straight for his head. It takes four teachers to finally yank her off of him. Her mouth still tastes like his meat jelly blood. That is the only part she regrets.

 _How many more students is she going to hurt before she faces real consequences?_ Her algebra teacher chimes in. She only cut that girls hair because she said Villanelle’s looked like the color of shit. She pushed the boy down the steps because he called her a psycho. She will admit that she just didn’t like how the second one’s face looked. The punch in the stomach was probably not deserved.

 _The other children provoke her. They taunt her._ Goosebumps as she listens to Anna’s voice ring. _She flourishes in class, Mikhail. She shows real promise in languages and-_

The dean cuts her off. _Anna. I appreciate your dedication to teaching, but some children cannot be saved. We’re going to have to ask her to leave the school._

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

_Mikhail, please. We can’t just… we can’t just abandon her like that._

_She gives us no choice!_

Silence. It’s thick. Even the laughter and shouts of the schoolchildren outside cannot drown it out. She feels as if she needs to cover her ears or scream. To create some sort of noise. To bring back the chaos.

Anna pipes up again.

_I can teach her. I’ll give her private lessons. Outside of school. Then we can assess if she can return._

The dean lets out a hearty laugh. _You really like this one, huh?_

 _She’s_ _special._

Special. Special. Special.

Has anyone ever called her that before?

_I don’t understand it, but… if you insist, you can instruct the girl. We can assess her again to see if she’s fit to return to the school._

Special.

_Thank you, Mikhail._

The math teacher makes an exasperated noise.

The door creaks open, and she is not afraid like she used to be.

Anna stands in the center of the frame. Upon first look, one might say her skirt is too long, shirt too frumpy, hair too messy. But, there’s this burning ferocity in her eyes and certain grace to her movement. It pulls her in like a riptide.

 _Oksana,_ Anna breathes out as she breathes in. _Follow me._

And she does.

_I love you._

She whispers it. It’s late. Their French lesson has gone over time again. She needs to return to the foster home before dark.

Anna turns around. She wasn’t listening, distracted by the colored pencils that needed cleaning up. _What was that, Oksana?_ She replies. Her hair bounces as she cocks her head.

 _I love you,_ she says, stronger. Her voice steady and unshaken. She wonders if it gets easier every time.

A warm smile grows on Anna’s lips. Her eyes are bright with affection. She revels in it.

 _I love you too,_ Anna replies.

It’s not the last time she says I love you. She growls it during sex. Anna’s nails scrape her naked back. She screams it while being shoved into a police van. Anna’s tear-streaked face burned into her memory. She remembers how weightless she felt during that first one. How innocent. She wishes she could go back.

The third person is Eve.

Her _I love you_ is nothing like Anna’s. It is heavy and sharp, tinged with thorns. Villanelle doesn’t want it to be this way. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

If Anna is devastation, Eve is rage.

When Eve turns her back, Villanelle can’t imagine anything worse than someone leaving her again. Blood rushes to her ears. Loud and hot. It pounds.

_I love you._

And the unspoken, _Don’t leave me._

_Please. Please don’t leave me._

Before she knows it, the gun is in her hand, and her finger is pulling the trigger. Eve crumples. The blood in her ears slows, but the ringing is still there.

Villanelle walks away.

Eve could have just joined her in Alaska. They would live together in a cabin, watch movies, cook, laugh, fuck. Anything they wanted, they could have. She has money saved. More money than a person needs in a lifetime. She would spend it all on Eve. Who would turn that down? Who would leave her?

Eve, with her curly hair and firecracker personality. Sharp as a whip and stubborn to boot. That’s who.

Villanelle can feel the black locks tickle her hand as she removes Eve’s bloody shirt. She wants to plunge into them when she pulls Eve close to escape the hotel. She wants a fistful while she fucks her hard in an alley, too passionate to find a room alone.

 _You’re mine._ She says it twice because she thinks Eve doesn’t understand. They are two souls intertwined. Inexplicably connected. Yin and Yang. Eve is hers, and she is Eve’s.

_You’re mine._

Eve thinks Villanelle can’t fathom love. She’s a psychopath. How could she feel the familiar ache and tug of one’s heart, resisting being given to another? She can fathom love. She’s merely particular about who she gives it to. Except with Eve. She is an accident. A disaster. It suits her.

Villanelle stops in her tracks, seemingly to observe the ruins. She trails her hand along fallen brick, wondering how long its been there and who touched it in the ages before.

She’s only said _I love you_ to three people. She’s only meant it twice.

The ground moves beneath her faster than she thought her legs could carry. She uses the walls of the ruins to propel her forward. She can’t pinpoint when she makes the decision to go back. Her body does for her, whipping around to head back the way she came.

_Eve. Eve. Eve. Eve._

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

From what Villanelle can see as she runs, the pool of blood beneath Eve is not very large. A good sign. The gun is small, and the shot was taken from a distance. There is no way the wound could prove fatal. Villanelle doesn’t let herself even begin to entertain that as an option.

Her hands grab at Eve’s sweater, rolling her over. Eve’s eyes are closed, but her chest rises and falls steadily. Her pulse is strong. Villanelle breathes out a sigh of relief. There is no exit wound, and Villanelle knows, location-wise, no doctor would attempt to take it out. A piece of Villanelle inside of Eve forever. She thinks it’s poetic.

She hoists Eve’s body over her shoulder. Eve lets out a grunt. Villanelle traces her fingers along her spine, and Eve settles, limp on top of her.

 _I love you,_ she thinks. Or maybe she says it out loud because Eve shudders, half-conscious. Villanelle rubs her back again.

Villanelle walks out of the ruin, a black mane of curls draped over her. She’s been a tourist before. She loves language and history and learning. She grips Eve, tight, and hopes when she returns to Rome, she’ll have a chance to sight-see.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a comic collaboration coming out between Isabella (@theatrelesbabe) and me (@villanever) on Tumblr so look out for that! Also, comments, as long as they are not overly critical because I do this for fun and other writing for work, are welcome and appreciated.


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